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Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

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Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#261

Post by cwkoss »

brownbat wrote: post #256
cwkoss wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reddit user from Hong Kong was recently banned from the /r/pics/ subreddit for posting about their support for the Hong Kong protests against https://www.reddit.com/r/chinareddits/comments/bz177v/got_ba... Tencent recently invested in Reddit. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-11/reddit-users-revolt-o...

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view_of_... A lot of comments still up are even more directly critical of Beijing than that post. Mods flagged it for "vote manipulation." So I don't know what to make of this. A sympathetic voting ring could have boosted the comment without the commenter knowing, confusing everyone here. Or maybe Tencent really is picking specific posts to complain about to Reddit…

You can change `reddit.com` -> `removeditt.com` to see (some) of the deleted comments on a thread.

https://www.removeddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view...

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#262

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

aclsid wrote: post #50
umeshunni wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no legal basis. It's just Xenophobia.

Nah, nobody is complaining about Taiwanese or Japanese investment, so that is moot point, mostly made by Chinese from the continent when things don't go their way.

They were screaming bloody murder about Japanese investment in the 1980s. Most of the complaints were the same, and some of the characters were even the same:

> We should have Japan and we should have Saudi Arabia and we should have all of these countries who are literally ripping us off left and right.... They should pay for our $200-billion deficit.... We are supporting -- we are literally supporting -- Japan, which is the greatest money machine ever created, and we created it to a large extent. -Donald Trump

> There is going to be a tremendous backlash against what Japan is doing in this country -- sucking the lifeblood out of it because of our stupid policies. Our policy is to have free trade, but Japan is not reciprocating. -Donald Trump

There were complaints about Japan not opening its domestic market to American products, about Japan buying up American companies, about cheap Japanese knockoffs of American products, and about Japanese companies being tightly connected with the government. The phrase back then was "Japan, Inc.," rather than today's "China, Inc."

Interestingly, while Japan was criticized for copying American products, the hysteria about Japan really took off as Japan began competing seriously with the United States in high-tech sectors. There's a clear parallel to China there. Now that Huawei has invested heavily in R&D and leads in 5G equipment, we suddenly hear about Huawei stealing Cisco IP in the early 2000s (the two companies settled in 2004, and one of the major claims was that Huawei copied an implementation of strcmp). China has become more serious about protecting IP and now invests as much as the US in R&D, but the issue of IP theft is suddenly urgent.

Given the demographics of HN, it's probably difficult for most people here to imagine this, but in the 1980s, there was palpable fear in the United States that Japan was taking over. There was a general angst about the United States being displaced as the #1 world power, but there was also fear of the rival's inscrutable and ominous culture.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#263

Post by cwkoss »

akiselev wrote: post #253
hiram112 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with that, especially for their biggest and most influential subs like /r/news and /r/politics. Reddit's owners have shown they're not above selling out some of these subs to firms like ShareBlue. It would make sense as part of their contract, they'd ensure that the mods were 'suited' to their customers' goals.

Shareblue was banned from r/politics and a bunch of other popular subs long ago.

Linking to the domain was banned. I doubt reddit has the technical capabilities to effectively prevent them from continuing their alleged bot/vote-manipulation activities.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#264

Post by bouncycastle »

ardy42 wrote: post #260
bouncycastle wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation No, they don't want to be a separate nation. It's a more complex situation than that. Taiwan considers itself as the Republic of China, where they consider the government in Beijing to be illegitimate, and reject communist rule. Note that the rest of the world has also moved on, when we say "China" we also mean the one ruled by the g…

>> keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation > No, they don't want to be a separate nation. It's a more complex situation than that. Taiwan considers itself as the Republic of China, where they consider the government in Beijing to be illegitimate, and reject communist rule. Tell that to the currently-ruling Democratic Progressive Party ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat…

Yes, the narratives keep on changing and there are various political camps that have different opinions because... politics. I had no idea my view was dated, thanks! I guess the pendulum swings back and forward every number of years. But to get to the main point about the "Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation", there's definitely no overwhelming consensus yet, even by the Taiwanese themselves, that their government should form an independent country!

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#265

Post by skinnymuch »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #185
jacquesm wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're eliding the fact that technology development and specifically startup growth are current strategic priorities for the PRC, and making a straw man by framing my argument as "China will change course because of a PG blogpost". It's not a strawman when that is exactly what you wrote: >> Meh...PG writing a blog post entitled "Why YC Is Quitting China" would cause plenty of tsoris in Beijing, and the Chin…

Tsoris means stress or suffering. A front-page article in a major American newspaper saying that the world's pre-eminent tech incubator was pulling out of the Chinese market due to political pressure would constitute a major loss of face and, yes, cause stress within the CPC leadership. I didn't say that this would drive a policy change after the fact. Quite the opposite, it would likely result in some kind of drama…

I don’t think China, the people or the ruling party, care much at all about YC. Of course there would be minor caring if something hit the front page of the journal about “YC quitting China”. But it would have to be such a minor thing. I wonder why you think China would care about such a tiny organization, relatively speaking (wondering in earnest).

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#266

Post by felipelemos »

dmode wrote: post #169

Hey, Chinese money is bad. But Saudi money is more than welcome. 50% of Softbank's vision fund is from Middle East sovereign funds, who have even more brutal censorship laws and commits more brazen human rights policies. US policy is completely incoherent and probably explained by who pays the bribes to Whitehouse vs. any legitimate principles.

It's not incoherent, because the issue with China never was about human rights or censorship.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#267

Post by skinnymuch »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #231
pertymcpert wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you replied to be wow, you have no idea how little China cares.

When you say "China" do you mean the average person on the street there or the CPC leadership? Given the number of fuerdai in elite US schools, you really don't think that the CPC leadership would care about a public spat with YC? I'm not trying to be right here, I'm honestly curious and would be honored to be disabused of my ignorance by a more informed perspective.

YC is so tiny compared to so many things. I don’t think it would be a spat because that to me means China would respond or there would be [serious] rumblings within the ruling party.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#268

Post by DeonPenny »

rhacker wrote: post #108

I doubt it. During the Khashoggi thing it turned a few heads but most businesses just stayed quiet for the few months it was a thing. Now biz as usual. I would expect that the same is happening for China money. Hush hush until we get out of the cloud.

The difference is that was just social pressure SA is still a US ally. China is not and given elections are coming up China will a huge talking about and looks to be approaching war on drugs level brinkmanship.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#269

Post by DeonPenny »

ETHisso2017 wrote: post #161

It's interesting: Chinese cash is welcome in real estate and the US treasury market. What is it about startups that makes the government concerned?

Chinese investment is being scrutinized in real estate too. The govt has been forcing chinese companies to sell various big investments.

Re: Chinese Cash Is Suddenly Toxic in Silicon Valley, Following U.S. Pressure

#270

Post by DeonPenny »

entropea wrote: post #104

Could somebody explain to me the vicious American hate for China from a totally uninformed viewpoint? Any links to read why I should also dislike China?

P theft, copycat tech, forced technology transfer, threatening US soldier, aggression toward US allies i.e. japan, taiwan, india
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